Product Description

U.S. Mineral Products Company (Cafco) of Stanhope, New Jersey manufactured a family of spray-applied cementitious fireproofing products marketed under the CAFCO name — Blaze-Shield, Heat-Shield, Power-Shield, Sound-Shield, Weather-Shield, and the Blaze-Shield Type D, H, and M variants. According to publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation, the CAFCO product line carried asbestos-containing formulations through the transition to the EPA’s 1973 Clean Air Act NESHAP prohibition on spray-applied asbestos fireproofing.

The 1969-1973 window is significant in the litigation record because it captures the terminal production period after the Kaylo-era manufacturer identifications had ceased but before EPA action closed the spray-asbestos market. Plaintiffs alleged that CAFCO product was specified and applied on structural steel in commercial high-rise construction, industrial plants, hospitals, schools, and public buildings across the United States throughout this window.

Workers Exposed

Trades allegedly encountering asbestos through post-Kaylo era CAFCO spray-applied fireproofing include:

  • Spray applicators and nozzle operators — direct wet-mix application generated dense airborne fiber; enclosed and partially enclosed floor decks concentrated exposure.
  • Ironworkers setting structural steel adjacent to and beneath spray operations — overspray fell across active steel bays.
  • Construction laborers performing cleanup, material handling, and general labor on floors where CAFCO was being applied or was still curing.
  • Electricians, plumbers, HVAC mechanics working concurrently on the same floor decks during spray operations.
  • Renovation and demolition workers disturbing aged, friable CAFCO fireproofing during building modification, mechanical upgrades, and demolition — a decades-later exposure population.

Because spray fireproofing is inherently friable and remains subject to AHERA management requirements when identified in buildings today, the renovation/demolition population continues to expand.